Bedtime Stories
by Collie Parkillo
Summary: Desperate boys like Gary Barkovitch will settle for really anything. Somewhat Stebbarkovitch.


**i had writer's block and this was the result **

**disclaimer: the long walk does not belong to me **

* * *

It was so much easier to die when there was nobody looking.

Each footfall was heavier, each step harder to take. It wasn't that Barkovitch felt anything anymore, it was more the lack of feeling that made it harder to move. The numbness made him feel subhuman and dirty, somehow. As though he was suddenly no better than the soldiers on the side of the road.

There was some desperation in each time he put one foot in front of the other. Maybe if he won the damn thing, he'd finally feel like a good person. What that even constituted anymore was starting to get unclear.

Hell, everything was unclear. He didn't even have a chance anymore.

That was wrong. The Plan. The fucking Plan. It'd been steps, it'd made sense, but it was all muddled now. It was all muddled. Every goddamn thing.

"Deep thoughts, eh, Gary? What's going on in that silly, disturbed head of yours?" A teasing little giggle complemented that sentence, and Barkovitch knew it could only be Stebbins. Stebbins was a fucked up kid, he thought. Stebbins aimed to walk them all to the ground.

"Fuck off." His voice sounded nearly foreign to him.

"Polite," Stebbins responded. "You know, Barkovitch, old pal, I do think you've got a shot at winning this thing. No one would be particularly happy if you did, but...eh, there's a chance." It was all a goddamn game to him, wasn't it? Like playing chess or checkers. Barkovitch tried to spit out some sort of profane response, but nothing came out of his throat. "Silent treatment, hm?"

The little fuck just had to make everything a question. Maybe it was some sort of personal thing, or maybe it was just to get more of a reaction.

Barkovitch smiled, because that really was it. That was the secret to the goddamn Long Walk. Lack of reaction. The winner was the one who reacted the least.

"Do you know the secret, Stebbins?" His hoarse, ragged voice was reminiscent of frayed, ripped cloth. "The secret to the Long Walk."

"Why, yes, I do."

"Stebbins?" A certain desperation had crept into his speech, and Barkovitch cursed himself silently. It made his skin crawl to think that he was giving Stebbins what he wanted. A reaction. It dawned on Barkovitch that Stebbins was the boy who went around trying to pry their desperate, crying souls out of the coffins that were their bodies. It was some sort of sick entertainment for him.

"Yes?"

"Where are we going?" He hadn't known what he was really going to ask, the question had just come up in his head suddenly.

Stebbins stared off at the road wistfully and smiled to himself. "One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree. 'Which road do I take?' she asked. 'Where do you want to go?' was his response. 'I don't know,' Alice responded. 'Then,' said the cat, 'It doesn't matter.'"

"What was that?"

"Alice in Wonderland. I've got quite a bit of it memorized." The smile on Stebbins' face was almost tiring to Barkovitch. The fucker had the nerve to be happy when people were dropping, people were falling down and dying all around them. And yet some part of Barkovitch was glad that he wasn't mocking him or pretending to listen as he rambled, the way Garraty and that goddamn Scarface had.

"More." It was a simple, stupid command, and sounded childish in his voice. Because the silly little children's tale had brought some momentary peace to the voices in his head. "I mean...do you know any more?"

"Of course I do." His smile was halfway between a grin and a smirk, without malevolent intent but somehow lacking good. "Let's see...'I quite agree with you,' said the Duchess; 'and the moral of that is-'be what you would seem to be'-or if you'd like it put more simply-'Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise.' 'I think I should understand that better,' Alice said very politely, 'if I had it written down: but I can't quite follow it as you say it.' 'That's nothing to what I could say if I chose,' the Duchess replied, in a pleased tone. 'Pray, don't trouble yourself to say it any longer than that," said Alice.'"

Stebbins' tone was rhythmic and nearly lulling. The words were close to nonsense-Gary Barkovitch had never been one for literature, he'd gotten C's in English-but they made some sort of beautiful psychobabble that brought some sort of feeling back into Barkovitch's body. "Go on." The words almost turned into a threat.

Stebbins trailed closer to him until they were walking nearly side by side. "'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less.' 'The question is," said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many different things.' 'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master-that's all.'"

None of it made much sense. Humpty Dumpty wasn't something he'd so much as thought about since he was about three.

_And all of the horses and all the king's men couldn't put Gary together again._

As if sensing Barkovitch's thoughts darkening, Stebbins launched into another quotation. "'But I don't want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked. 'Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat: 'We're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad.' 'How do you know I'm mad?' said Alice. 'You must be,' said the Cat, 'or you wouldn't have come here.' That one is my favorite, you know, Barkovitch."

Barkovitch's face managed a self-deprecating grin. "The Long Walk."

"Hm?"

"The Long Walk. We're all mad here."

Stebbins laughed. "Oh, you've got quite a point. We've all got to be, otherwise we wouldn't be here. I've never thought of it in that way. You've noticed something that I haven't, consider yourself quite special."

"Say more." He felt very stupid and weak, suddenly. Stebbins must have been laughing at him, at his need for human companionship. Stebbins didn't need any of that. Stebbins could walk until everybody else fell down.

"Greedy for my literature, aren't you? 'Well! I've often seen a cat without a grin," thought Alice. 'But a grin without a cat! It's the most curious thing I ever saw in my life!'" The air of surprise Stebbins put into the speech made it almost funny.

"That goddamn cat's a lot like you." It was the longest sentence he'd formed since speaking to Stebbins.

"You're right. I grin and disappear, it's true. Say, would you like to hear some from Through the Looking Glass?"

Barkovitch muttered a "sure" because although this wasn't much company, it was enough company. And he'd have to settle for just barely enough for now.

* * *

**sobs because total crap **


End file.
